


Kindertotenlied

by AndyAO3



Series: Angry Marshmallows and Sad Robots [7]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Disabled Lone Wanderer, Drabble, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 11:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4827977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fuck Point Lookout right in its hillbilly face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindertotenlied

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks! This drabble initially got posted on my Tumblr and I figured I'd put it here for giggles since it doesn't spoil anything. I'm gonna do that with a couple of my drabbles while I work on other shit (there's an application thing that Bioware put out for new writers and I am ALL OVER THAT SHIT, plus my dear friend Zooheaded@AO3/Tumblr is visiting soon so I have to get ready, YAY FRANDS VISITING). 
> 
> Face On is still ongoing. Hopefully this and the other things I'll post will tide you guys over though.

Ted woke up groggy and headache-y, with a sickly sweet taste in his mouth that made him want to gag. The air was thick and heavy; it was humid enough to make everything feel a bit sticky, and he couldn’t quite tell whether he was sweating or not.

So at least that part of being in Point Lookout hadn’t changed.

"Hey," a familiar voice said, sounding none too happy. "Feeling all right?"

"Nnugh." Ted brought a hand up to his face to massage the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. It had never stopped feeling like his sinuses were balloons, either. Not since they’d landed. Lovely. "Been better… Also been worse, though." The latter was added after he’d taken stock enough to realize that his head was resting in a warm, comfy lap. Yeah, he could definitely think of worse ways to wake up in a bog.

"Right." A warm, solid hand came to cup the back of his head, petting his hair. Ted didn’t complain. He’d figured out a while back that Harkness was all about being touchy. "You were out for hours," Harkness said. "That plant– discharged something. You were unconscious almost immediately."

Ted smirked. "I bet you counted the milliseconds."

The petting stopped, and Harkness gave him a bland, serious look that Ted had learned to interpret as _don’t joke about it_. "Your vitals were erratic afterward. Heartrate and blood pressure dropped. I used a few stims to keep you from flatlining." There Harkness paused, his brow furrowing. "Sorry."

D'aw. Worried robot. "Apologizing for letting me get knocked out by a plant, or apologizing for using up some of the dwindling supply of stimpaks?"

"Both," Harkness replied without hesitation. Another pause, and he was frowning again. "You’re not taking this seriously, are you?"

"Me? Pffh, nah. We’re in a swamp full of inbred cannibalist hillbillies and lobotomized plant-loving tribals. What’s there to take seriously?" Ted went to sit up, but the sudden rush of blood to his head had him plopping back into the android’s lap. "Ooh, alright, yeah. Still dizzy."

Harkness smiled faintly. He was getting better at the subtleties of human expression. Either that or Ted was getting better at reading him, because he looked a teeny bit amused. "Take your time," he said.

Ted whined childishly. "Ehhhh. Don’t wanna. Sitting still sucks."

"Tough. Deal with it." Harkness was also good at being firm without raising his voice. Without losing his smile, even. That was less a human thing and more a Rivet City head of security thing. Or maybe just a Harkness thing.

Either way, Ted couldn’t really say he minded it. "Anything else happen while I was out? Did you have to save me from being eaten by mirelurks? Maybe the locals thought I’d make a tasty dinner?"

"Tobar followed us into the swamp. Tried to jump you. Well, us." Harkness resumed his previous hair-petting, which Ted suspected was more for the android’s sake than his own. "Wasn’t hard to chase off."

"Tobar…" Ted chewed his lip, staring at a discolored patch of sky that he could barely see through the clouds and fog and withered-ass swamp trees. "The guy with the ferry?"

Harkness nodded, going silent for a minute. He hadn’t trusted the ferryman from the start; Ted had been the one to drag him along with promises of adventure. But to be fair to Harkness, there had been more getting stuck in bogs, running out of ammo, running out of explosives, broken power armor, broken weapons, smelly fucking bogs, broken power fists, and general misery than any real adventure or even treasure-finding.

Neither of them was really enjoying this trip much. They were mainly running on fumes and spite. Ted stayed because he was determined to squeeze some fun out of the whole endeavor, and Harkness stayed because he was picking up on Ted’s habit of being contrary. What a great combo that was.

"Ted," Harkness began after a while, "can we please _not_ humor the locals this time?"

And Ted had to snicker a little, because that had been the exact excuse he’d given for poking around the swamp for the big punga plant (or whatever) in the first place. "Yeah, okay," he conceded. "No more humoring the locals."


End file.
